# Cost optimization checklist

Keep compute spend predictable without giving up throughput: what to check weekly, how to stop paying for idle clusters, and where to right-size.

Source: https://university.eugo.io/resources/cost-optimization-checklist

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- Kind: Checklist
- Topics: billing-plans, performance, administration

## Know what you are spending

- **Check usage against plan limits weekly** — The dashboard shows current usage against your plan. A weekly glance turns a month-end surprise into a Tuesday adjustment.
- **Attribute spend to workloads** — Know which jobs dominate your compute. Optimizing the wrong one is effort with no return on the bill.

## Stop paying for idle

- **Shut down clusters when the run finishes** — A cluster left running after a job completes costs the same as one doing work. This is the single largest avoidable line item.
- **Do not leave interactive sessions open overnight** — A session holds resources whether or not you are typing. Close it when you stop for the day.

## Spend efficiently when you do spend

- **Size the cluster to the work, not to the maximum** — Past the point where per-task overhead approaches per-task work, extra workers add cost without reducing wall-clock time.
- **Request GPUs only where they help** — GPU nodes cost more. Reserve them for the tasks that genuinely benefit, and leave the rest on CPU.
- **Fix I/O before scaling out** — Scaling an I/O-bound job multiplies waiting. Reducing read volume is almost always cheaper than adding workers.